"Angler" (Third Update)

A vein throbbed in Meng Qi's temple. It felt as if someone had hacked deep into his brain, or torn his Primordial Spirit to shreds. The pain nearly made him cry out.

His inner landscape stirred. The Indestructible Yuan Shi Aspect appeared within his Primordial Spirit, standing alongside the Golden Giant Buddha. He returned to his original state, Only I Am Supreme!

The pain receded like a tide. Meng Qi's eyes were half-open, half-closed, cold sweat running down his forehead. His whole body felt drained.

After a while, he opened his eyes. His left pupil was chaos, as if all directions—up, down, left, right, front, and back—had converged into a single point. A barely visible Daoist seemed to be "hidden" within it. His right pupil was crystal-clear, and a Golden Giant Buddha sat within, one hand pointing to the sky and the other touching the earth: boundless purity, boundless wisdom!

The Daoist and Buddha vanished in a flash. Meng Qi's eyes cleared, but what he had just seen surfaced in his mind again, bringing with it a flood of questions.

According to the Eternal Life Clan girl Xiao Ru, she could see countless scenes, each one like a glimmer on rippling water and containing a version of herself. That matched the "they" mentioned in "Ancient's" message and what "Ancient" had shown. But why could Meng Qi only ever see himself in his past life, and the figure deep in Spirit Mountain gazing up at the Great Sage as he swung his staff?

If "Golden Saber" Yi Meng had only seen one version of himself because he lacked the secret method and was weaker than "Ancient," why had Meng Qi, who possessed the method and was stronger than Xiao Ru had been before she died, encountered the same situation?

When they